A Time For Hanging (4 page)

"We can't do a thing like that," Simkins said.

"Sure we can," Turley said.
 
"Save the judge some trouble."

"Turley's right," Harl said.
 
"We can do it ourselves.
 
Wouldn't nobody say anything against it.
 
What do you say, Lane?"

Harper, like the others, was thinking about what had happened.
 
They had viciously beaten the boy, who was practically dead already.

What if he got to be all right before the judge got him tried.
 
What if he was able to convince a jury that he didn't have anything to do with the killing?
 
What would that make the men who had beaten him?
 
It could make them not much better than killers themselves, that's what.

On the other hand, if the boy was dead, he wouldn't be able to say anything at all.

"I say we hang him," Harper said.

"I'll go along with that," Hawkins added.

"Well, it ain't gonna be that way," Jack Simkins said.
 
"I ain't much of a lawman, but I'm enough of a one to know better than to stand still for a lynchin', even if it is a meskin."

He drew his pistol.
 
"So I guess I'm gonna have to be the one to stay here and watch this boy and let one of you go get the sheriff.
 
Turley, that might's well be you.
 
And you others can go and stand down there by the girl.
 
I don't need no help here."

"You don't need to treat us like this, Jack," Lane Harper said.
 
"We didn't mean no harm."

"You meant to hang this boy, here."

"It's just that he ought to hang," Harl said.
 
"Look what he done to that girl."

"That's as may be.
 
Right now we ain't entirely sure of that."

"I'm sure," Hawkins said.

"Me, too," Turley said.

"I'd hate to have to shoot you boys over something like this," Jack said.
 
He had kept the barrel of his pistol pointed down.
 
Now he raised it slightly.
 
"Turley, you ride on back to town for the sheriff like I said.
 
Lane, you might's well go with him and bring the doc."

"Goddamn, Jack --"

"That's enough of that, now.
 
Go on."

Jack thought for a minute they might rush him.
 
They stood there, looking at him, breathing hard, their fists opening and closing, but the moment passed.
 
They turned and walked away, leaving him standing there, the boy at his feet.

Jack looked down at the motionless Paco.
 
"I'll say one thing, boy.
 
If you had any shoes on, I'd sure hate to be in 'em right now."

He holstered his pistol and leaned back against a tree to wait for the sheriff.

Sheriff Ward Vincent had never wanted to be the law in Dry Springs.
 
He had stood for election only because no one else would do it after the last sheriff, old Frank Rawlings, had been killed one night by a likkered-up young gunsharp who'd been hoorawin' the town, shootin' out windows and scarin' people half to death.
 
The gunman had got clean away, and no one had ever seen him again.
 
Five or six months went by before an election was held, because it took that long to get someone to say he'd run.

That had been seven years ago, and Vincent had been the sheriff ever since, doing the best job he could for fifty dollars a month.
 
He didn't have a family to support, his wife having died of a fever so early in their marriage that they'd never had children, so the money was all right; and to tell the truth, the job wasn't as bad as it might have been.
 
Just the usual drunks, an occasional fight at Danton's saloon, now and then a little robbery, but nothing to cause a man to lose his sleep.

So it wasn't the job itself that bothered Vincent.
 
Instead, it was the constant though of what might happen that kept him in a sweat.
 
He knew he wasn't a brave man, though after seven years people had started thinking of him that way.

You wear the badge long enough, and people begin to think you've got the guts to back it up.
 
Break up a fight or two, run a couple of rowdies out of town, and people begin to believe you're a handy man with your fists or a gun.

Vincent wasn't any of those things.
 
He was just an ordinary man who had to do his job as best he could.
 
He'd never been tested in a really tough situation.
 
The nearest he ever came was the time Roberto Morales got shot, and the gambler had claimed self-defense.
 
Said Morales was cheatin' and when the gambler called his hand, Morales came at him with a knife.
  
So the gambler shot him.

A couple of folks backed the gambler up.
 
Lane Harper, for one.
 
Said he'd seen the whole thing, and sure enough, there was a knife lyin' there by Morales' body, a huge pigsticker that no one in town ever remembered seein' Morales carry.

Nobody could ever remember Morales bein' anything but honest, either, but the gambler went on his way without much question.

Vincent thought about it every now and then, as the thought about it now, sitting in the little hot-box of a jail, looking up at the round-faced clock on the wall.

Eleven o'clock.
 
Not that late if it was a Saturday night, but nothing ever happened in Dry Springs on a Tuesday, which is what it was now.
 
Vincent was only rarely awake this late during the middle of the week.

He opened the top drawer of the scarred old desk and rummaged around in it for the winding key, found it, and walked over to the clock.
 
He opened the face, inserted the key, and gave it a couple of turns.
 
The spring was already tight, so he put the key back in the desk.

He sat back down and thought about Lizzie Randall.

Her father had been all in a sweat, sayin' that his daughter had disappeared.

That had been two hours earlier.

"What do you mean, 'disappeared,' Preacher?" Vincent said.

"I mean she's gone," Randall said.
 
"She left the house, and she hasn't come back for supper.
 
My wife . . . . "
 
He paused.
 
"My wife's worried sick."

"She ever go off before?"

Randall straightened.
 
He swallowed twice, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
 
"Never," he said, his mouth dry as he tried to swallow the lie.

That wasn't what Vincent had heard.
 
As the sheriff, he kept a close eye on the town and knew a lot more about what went on than nearly anyone.
 
He knew more about Lizzie Randall than he parents did, he suspected.

"Well, now," he said.
 
"Where do you think he might be gone?"

"I have no idea," Randall said.
 
"I thought that was your job.
 
To find her."

"I'll send some men out to look for her," Vincent said.
 
"I don't reckon she's gone too far."

He already had in mind a couple of places for the men to search.
 
He knew that Lizzie had been in the habit of straying around the town after dark lately.
 
That was no surprise, considering the way Randall kept her hobbled.
 
Vincent suspected that she was meeting a young man.
 
He hated to break up a rendezvous, but it was late, after all, and the time for her to be getting home.
 
She'd probably just lost track of the time.

"You go on home," he told Randall.
 
"I'll take care of things.
 
We'll have her back before you know it."

Randall appeared reluctant to leave.
 
"Shouldn't I stay here and wait until you find out something?"

"There's no reason for that," Vincent assured him.
  
"Jack'll be in any minute, and I'll have him round up a few men to look for your daughter.
 
They'll find her.
 
Don't worry about that."

"Well," Randall said hesitantly.
 
"If you say so, I suppose it's all right."

"You can count on it," Vincent said.

"You'll let us know as soon as you find her?"

"That's what I've been tellin' you."

Randall left then, but he was clearly not happy with the situation.
 
It seemed to Vincent almost as if the preacher didn't want to go back home.

He had not been gone long before Jack came in.

"Town's quiet, Sheriff," he said.
 
"Not much stirrin' around tonight."
 
He smiled, which had the effect of making his face a bit less grotesque.
 
He was always glad to report a quiet evening.
 
He didn't like action any better than Vincent did.

"We do have one little problem," Vincent told him.
 
He filled him in on Randall's visit.

"Damn," Jack said.
 
"You know, a few nights back I thought I saw her over to that grove of trees on the west side of town.
 
That was earlier than this, though."

"I remember," Vincent said.
 
"I don't think there's anything to this, but we might as well do it right.
 
Anybody still drinkin' over at the saloon?"

"A few," Jack said.

"Well, round 'em up and get 'em out lookin'.
 
Send a few over to the springs, and you take the rest over to the woods.
 
If we don't locate her there, we'll try something else.
 
I expect she'll be home before you hardly get to lookin'."

"All right, Sheriff," Jack said.
 
"You want me to bring her in if I find her?"

"That's the idea.
 
I'll give her a little lecture on not worryin' her daddy, and we'll let it go at that."

Vincent looked at the clock again.

Eleven-fifteen.

He was beginning to wonder why Jack hadn't come back when he heard horses outside.
 
The door banged opened and Turley Ross came in.

"Howdy, Sheriff," Ross said.

"Howdy, Turley.
 
You one of the search party?"

"Yeah.
 
We found her."

"Good," Vincent said, getting out of his chair.
 
"Where --"

"We found the sonofabitch that killed her, too," Ross said.

Vincent felt as if someone had hit him in the kidneys with a three-foot club.
 
"Wait a minute, Turley, what're you --"

"It was that Paco Morales," Turley went on.
 
"Meskin kid that lives in a shack out past the edge of town.
 
He's the one done it."

Vincent took a deep breath and tried to steady his nerves.
 
"Lizzie Randall," he said.
 
"You tellin' me she's dead?"

"Damn right, she's dead.
 
Raped, too, probably, you ask me.
 
It was that meskin kid, like I said.
 
Len Harper's gone for the doc."

Vincent sat on the edge of his desk, trying to take it in.
 
He could feel his sweaty shirt sticking to his back.
 
"You're sure she's dead?"

"Hell, you oughta see her.
 
She's dead all right."
 
Ross shook his head.
 
"Damn shame, too, her daddy bein' the preacher and all."

Vincent could hardly believe what he was hearing.
 
Lizzie Randall, dead.
 
And killed by the same boy whose father had been shot in the only other incident that had disturbed Vincent's more or less peaceful career as sheriff of Dry Springs.